So, you’ve successfully rallied hundreds of strangers to pay for your brilliant game idea on Kickstarter, IndieGoGo or some other crowdfunding site. Now you need to make the damn thing. But an even bigger problem looms after you develop and test Amazing Game X: getting it to everyone who wants it, including backers.
EA, of all companies, wants to help with that wrinkle. They’ve announced today that they’ll make crowd-financed games that are “fully-funded, complete and ready-to-publish” available on their Origin digital distribution platform and will waive any distribution fees for three months. Of course, once those three months are over, EA presumably goes back to taking their cut.
It’s a savvy for EA as the mega-publisher tries to attract more games away from Valve’s Steam platform and looks like they’re helping fledgling developers. And if you’re a veteran game creator like Brian Fargo, the loving audience who paid out to Kickstarter probably won’t care where they’re buying your game from as long they get to play it. On the other hand, once a consumer signs up for Origin, EA’s free to dangle all of their own wares in front of them so they get a marketing boost off of this initiative, too.
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